One of the most influential philosophical essays by English philosopher John Stuart Mill, written in 1859 and espousing the values of individual freedom. It has since served as a foundational work for liberalism and many of its principles have been adopted into democratic societies. Mill argues that society tends to force the preferences of the…
Category: Classics
Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoyevsky (8.5/10)
A classic Russian psychological thriller novel, with length about 650 pages and originally published as a 6-part series. The story takes place in 19th century St. Petersburg. Raskolnikov is a poor student, who at the beginning of the novel, murders an old pawnbroker woman with an axe (and her sister too). By sheer chance, he…
The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand (6.9/10)
Novel by libertarian author Ayn Rand, set in New York in the 1920s featuring two young rival architects. The story begins with Howard Roark expelled from his architecture school for his unwillingness to conform to the standards of the establishment; he has a distinct modernist style and refuses to compromise to please others. Meanwhile, his…
The Structure of Scientific Revolutions by Thomas S. Kuhn (8.2/10)
A classic book written in 1962 and a very influential book about the sociology of science. Kuhn describes how science goes through brief periods of revolutions (or paradigm shifts), with longer quieter periods of “normal science” in between. A “paradigm” is a shared set of views in a scientific community about the general framework of…
The Communist Manifesto by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels (7.7/10)
Written in 1848 in German, this 40-page book is one of the most influential political books ever written. Marx and Engels see society as divided into two classes, the bourgeoisie (people who hire workers and sell the goods) and the proletariat (people who trade their labor for money). The bourgeoisie class arose out of feudalism…
Sir Gawain and the Green Knight by Anonymous (8.7/10)
Poem written in Middle English by an anonymous poet in the 14th century. It is about 2500 lines long (90 pages) and is part of the “alliterative revival” — similar to the style of Old English poetry like Beowulf, but in a regional dialect of Middle English. Unlike Chaucer who is from London, this poem…
Dream of the Red Chamber (红楼梦) by Cao Xueqin (7.2/10)
One of the four great classic novels of Chinese literature, written in the 18th century. The novel has several English names: it is most commonly known as Dream of the Red Chamber, but also Story of the Stone. It spans 2500 pages over 5 volumes (David Hawkes’s translation), I got through about 200 pages of…
The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck (8.8/10)
Summary Classic American novel by John Steinbeck, set in the Great Depression. It follows the story of the Joad family, originally they owned a farm in Oklahoma, but after crop failures in the dust bowl, they lost their farm. Hearing of greener pastures out west in California, they pack up all their belongings and set…
The Plague (La Peste) by Albert Camus (8.0/10)
Novel by philosopher Albert Camus, set in Oran, a town in Algeria, in the 1940s. Very relevant reading in the time of COVID-19: the novel tells of an epidemic of bubonic plague that hits Oran. The style is more philosophical rather than plot driven, and describes the reactions of society and how various people respond…
The Saga of the Volsung translated by Jackson Crawford (7.5/10)
One of the most famous of the Icelandic Sagas: it was written in the 1200s in medieval Iceland, but describes existing folklore of the Viking culture that were familiar to everyone in the society. The events are perhaps based off real people but would have taken place several hundred years prior, in continental Europe. It…
Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad (7.9/10)
Classic novella by Joseph Conrad about a man’s journey down the Congo River into the heart of Africa, in a steamboat. He wants to explore the Congo because it’s one of the last blank spaces on the map, and sets off in a French boat. He goes up the river to find a mysterious Mr….
Notes from the Underground by Fyodor Dostoyevsky (8.2/10)
I read this Dostoyevsky book as a recommendation from [redacted] because it’s partially about a man who tries to rescue a prostitute. It turns out that the rescuing prostitute part is not really the central event of the book, but nevertheless I found it quite interesting. The novella is short enough (90 pages) unlike Dostoyevsky’s…